Category Archives: Book Reviews

Books about food, nutrition, agriculture, and other related topics

Book review of Humboldt Life on America’s marijuana frontier

Emily Brady. 2013. Humboldt. Life on America’s marijuana frontier. The tales I hear from my friends in Mendocino and Humboldt counties fascinate me.  There are stories of mayors and sheriffs on opposite sides of the drug war plotting revenge against … Continue reading

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Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence

A book review by Alice Friedemann of David Perlmutter’s (2013) Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar–Your Brain’s Silent Killers. Update February 2014: Diabetes is usually triggered by eating too many sugary and high-fat foods that cause … Continue reading

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Book Reviews: Why I Write Them, How I Find Them

I’ve read thousands of mainly non-fiction books over the past 40 years. Why I write Book Reviews I write book reviews for a number of reasons — to give my brain a “workout”, as a source of information for my … Continue reading

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Processed Food is Killing You: Cook At Home

30 Reasons why the Food Giants CAN’T get rid of Salt, Sugar, and Fat  A book review by Alice Friedemann of Michael Moss’s “Salt, Sugar, Fat. How the Food Giants Hooked Us”. When the food industry talks about you, the … Continue reading

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Book Review of “Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live”

Alice Friedemann’s review of: Marlene Zuk. 2013. Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live. My first introduction to Evolutionary Psychology was “The Adapted Mind” which posited we’re unhappy because of the tremendous difference between … Continue reading

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Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers

Learn a quick and simple way to bake Chips & Crackers in the new book, Crunch!  Whole Grain Artisan Chips & Crackers.  Authored by Oakland’s Alice Friedemann, Crunch! is based on five years of nutritional research and kitchen experimentation, and … Continue reading

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Best Nutrition Book you can buy: Nutrition for Health and Health Care by Whitney

Eleanor Noss Whitney, et. al. Nutrition for Health and Health Care. I looked through hundreds of nutrition textbooks at the University of California Public Health and Life Sciences libraries, and thought this was by far the best textbook. I’m not … Continue reading

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Drug dealers: How pharmacies try to sell healthy people drugs

Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels.  2005.  Selling Sickness.  How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients.  As endless growth comes to a halt from peaking resources and a corrupt financial system, health care costs may skyrocket … Continue reading

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How to evaluate health claims

Davis, Robert J. 2008. The Healthy Skeptic.  Cutting through the hype about your health. This is an overview of a book about health claims.  To try to figure out if a product has whole grains in it, read my article … Continue reading

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How close is our Civilization to Collapse from Soil Erosion?

David R. Montgomery. 2007. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations.  Univ. of California Press. The bedrock of any civilization is food and water.  So you’d think the top priority of nations throughout history would be ensuring farmers were taking good care … Continue reading

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